Susan Banoun (University of Cincinnati), Rita Doran (Oldham County PL), Leoma Dunn (Thomas More College), Leslie Hoekzema (Kenton County PL), Galina Lewandowicz (graduate student, Kent State University), Carol MacMann (BWI), Kathy O’Herron (O’Herron Consulting), Jean Small (Oldham County PL), Aaron Smith (Clermont County Public Library), Tracey Stivers (Cincinnati State Technical and Community College), Connie Strait (Green County Public Library), Margaret Whitehead (Boone County PL), and Doug Williams (Campbell County PL)
This largest gathering ever coincided with the inaugural meeting held at GCLC’s new Blue Ash location. GCLC Director Anne Abate had cake and champagne awaiting our arrival, which was a fairly prolonged time period, as several struggled to locate the facility. The facility is beautiful, and will offer many opportunities for the membership, once we all get used to finding it.
We introduced ourselves (actually three times, I think, to include latecomers), with brief descriptions of our duties and responsibilities.
At the beginning of the gathering, Aaron mentioned a couple of points for consideration of those present:
Consider providing an opportunity to library school students (from Kent State or Kentucky, or elsewhere, for that matter) for practicum and field experience. Those of you with modest self-contained projects that are being constantly pushed to the back burner may have just the right opportunity for a student who has never worked in a library, but has solid academic credentials and a willingness to learn. Your responsibilities would include supervision, some modest documentation, and evaluation, and a chance to market our profession to the next generation. Let Aaron know if you need contact information.
Suggestions include:
· Subject analysis and subject heading assignment (including children’s)
· Introduction to MARC
· Authority control
· RSS, weblogs, and librarianship
· Connexion (for OCLC member catalogers in transition to the new software)
Anne, Aaron, and the GCLC staff will throw these ideas around and come up with some possibilities.
We looked at the set of posters published by the Technical Services Division of the Ohio Library Council, using them for the basis of a discussion on local practices and coding. We distributed copies of all four posters to those attending. A number of areas sparked discussion:
The upcoming transition to ISBN-13 was mentioned by Carol MacMann; to date, input of this number (prefix 978 + the first 9 digits of the ISBN + a new check digit remains in 024 3_
We clarified the use of these call numbers; most use 099 for local applications
We touched on the use of uniform titles, and the pros and cons of their presence, with strong feelings on both sides of the issue
We briefly discussed the differences between these two usages
We pretty much agreed that the attempt to format this field is neither universal nor successful, particularly due to the lack of authority control and ILS access capabilities. Keyword access does not require formatting, and is a widely accepted ILS feature
Genre terms are being used by some, but not all, local catalogers, with some regarding it as optional.
A number of local libraries make use of available contents notes via the url links in this field; some reformat them and copy them to the 505, while others simply leave them accessible to the users; most of us delete the field if the link destination is a publisher blurb
Although we agreed that most access to language is provided by the principal language code pulled from the 008, we acknowledge (especially where multiple-language subtitles are concerned), that there may be potential in the future for more common use of the 041 for access to languages other than the principal tongue.
Most of us do very little with this field; but we note the comments offered above regarding the 041, that usage of this field may come with ILS enhancements
We discussed the concept of principal source, and how most public libraries have neither the time nor the resources to provide access to an actual viewing of every film cataloged. Nearly all of us work primarily from the label and the container, and while the information is often incomplete, this practice provides our users with access.
Again, congratulations to Anne and the GCLC staff on their new facility!
Next meeting: Thursday, April 28, 2005 (1:30-4:00 pm), at the GCLC office in Blue Ash.
Tentatively, we will dig into the questions of definition that come up when we discuss coding the “date type” field. What is a reprint, exactly, as opposed to a re-impression or reissue, or why are music CD compilations coded as reprints, when similar monograph compilations are treated differently? See you in April!
Respectfully submitted, Aaron
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